So the defense that has clamped down on Tony Romo, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Cam Newton, and Alex Smith is suddenly "overrated" because of one loss? It's "terrible on third down" because it's played against a lot of excellent 3rd-down QB's (which, BTW, is part of the definition of an elite QB)? Seven good games get erased by the eighth?

Am I the only one who thinks this is just a tad bit overreactionary? I'm not gonna buy it. Plenty of other explanations.

People were silly from the beginning to think that this offense was nothing more than Calvin Johnson bailing out a terrible QB. Matt Stafford won this game on the back of uber-accurate passes into great coverage. There are plays that even the best defense can't reliably beat, and Stafford had a bunch of them today. This was the 8th-ranked DVOA offense. It is not embarrassing to lose to them. Young and Broyles on a team with Megaton, Pettigrew, and Scheffler could make this a scary offense for years to come.

(Imagine if we had that many weapons, instead of Charly Martin and Golden "Let's Get Cute" Tate. Sheesh, 7 catches and he still manages to make most of them pointless. STRETCH FOR THE FIRST DOWN AND QUIT HASSELTOSSING, YOU AWKWARD ROLE-PLAYER.)

And not all of Stafford's passes took him five seconds to establish, so don't blame the pass rush for ALL of them. If you're gonna look there, remember that Jason Jones' absence counts for a lot. We were all grumbling about the lack of interior pressure from a good 3-tech last ye4ar - well, today we reverted to that ineffective play and our secondary couldn't cope. But Stafford also made some awesome stick throws into tight coverage today that would have been hard to defend by anyone. Tom Brady made similar throws. I didn't see anyone calling our D "underrated" then. We're just labeling this defense based purely on whether we won or lost.

My inevitable takeaway: This was the most NFL-ish game the Seahawks have played in a long time. A "normal" score instead of a collection of field goals. Actual scoring. No glaring issues that can't be mitigated by better health. No ill effects from youth, self-destruction, or general lack of talent or identity. Just a throwdown by two increasingly complete teams. Sustained scoring by both sides. Spotty but good execution on both sides. Both teams wanting it, playing hard despite losing players. Both QB's proving they can marshal fourth-quarter scoring drives. And in the end, the game came down to whichever team had the last word in the fourth-quarter, and whose injuries were more crucial. That team was Seattle, despite hanging tough with real points in a ROAD game. It felt more like an NFL playoff game than any game Seattle has played under Russell Wilson yet.

Big positives:

* Clutch conversions on the 4th-qtr drive by a pocket-climbing Wilson. QBOTF play from him today despite missing Doug Baldwin AND Braylon Edwards. On the road.

* Almost no penalties. On the road.

* D held Stafford to a merely okay 7.2, further proving that they forced Stafford to earn every yard of this game (he was simply up to the challenge). On the road.

* Zach Miller finally showing up. On the road.

* Further chemistry between RW and Sidney Rice. On the road.

* Run defense floundered early but quickly got their feet back under them. On the road.

* Lynch ran hard and broke 100 yards again. On the road.

* We lost by only four points. On the road.

* Did I mention this was all on the road?

So let's just...simmer down, folks. I know this was a must-win conference game, but for the millionth time, it was rich to expect this team to compete in the playoffs with such few offensive weapons. We'll get there. And the run game/defense will still be here.

And for those of you silly enough to actually put Pete on a hot seat...seriously, you have an estrogen buildup somewhere. Go to a specialist and get it drained or something.

Last edited by MontanaHawk05 on Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I am not buying it either. If we stopped them on the last drive - no one is saying any of this. They are one of the best offenses in the league - at home after getting beat in a game where they should have scored four TDs against the #1 defense on the road.

I loved how our offense played even without a steady running game. We finally passed on first down with good success on the road.

But give credit to Detroit. They are a good team.

Last edited by TDOTSEAHAWK on Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you want to see things clearly, you just need to make an appointment with your optometrist.

This defense has been very good through 7 games with some problems that we've been seeing all year, they lose 1 game due to those same problems and suddenly this defense has never been very good. That means what? Perfect play all season or "you suck Seahawks!"?

It's still a good defense. However I will disagree that it isn't embarrassing to lose to the Lions. The Lions were getting beaten by defenses all year who weren't being talked about as the best in the league. For them to have their breakout game against our D is embarrassing, especially in a game where the offense held up their end.

The Seahawks D aren't bums by any stretch but I sure hope they're embarrassed and that this burns them. It isn't overreacting to point out they pissed themselves today. Heck I don't believe there's a single one of them would wouldn't say themselves they never should have played that poorly, road or no.

Last edited by hawk45 on Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I completely agree. Just a bad game for a still young defense. Still plenty of season to get hot. We all knew the first half of the season was gonna be tough. We got wins where I didn't think we'd get wins and losses from teams I never thought we'd lose to. We can still make a push, let's not panic!

Last edited by the_12th_man on Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

JSeahawks wrote:Like I said in another thread, we're a young team still learning how to win.

We'll be fine.

Btw, excellent post, hope it doesnt get buried in all the overreaction, whining and crying.

Exactly

We have the 3rd youngest team in the league. It takes time to develop players, learn to win and be consistent play after play. We are growing, we are getting better, we are improving. I really enjoin watching the growth of this team. This team is heading in the right direction and it will become good for a long time but it just takes time to gel. More time then the average fan has patience for.

Sarlacc83 wrote:The Lions were going to break out of their offensive slump eventually. They just decided to do it against us.

That's how I feel. Stafford was elite today.

And we can still call ourselves a number one defense, because it was just inevitable after all. The mighty Lions HAD to breakout against someone, and if it's us, well, we may as well not make the plane trip. I mean nobody could have stopped them today, nobody.

Please. Our defense is very, very good, but best in the league? If Megatron doesn't drop half his passes today then they rack up even more yards.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Am I the only one who thinks this is just a tad bit overreactionary? I'm not gonna buy it. Plenty of other explanations..

Probably yes,,, what ain't you buyin'?, a Defense that had the job of keeping the 2 & 4 Lions from going downfield in their last drive from just waltzing to the other end?..........Plenty of other EXcuses, not explanations.I love all the positives you mention, but they don't mean squat in a loss.

I tend to agree Montana, but my issue is this: Detroit did this to us, where they haven't all year long to anyone else.

EVERY other team dictated to Detroit how their offense would go. An Elite defense dictates the offense's tempo. We didn't, and haven't all year long on 3rd down. You can credit opposing offenses and QBs, but giving up 3rd and 8's, 3rd and 12's, and 3rd and 15's with alarming regularity isn't teams taking the play from us, it's us giving the play to them. The AVERAGE NFL defense gets teams out in 3rd and long more often than not. We're the other way around. Does that make us overrated ? Maybe. We're sure not an elite defense yet though. Or I should say, we're an elite defense at home. Which means our team has to be near perfect in today's NFC to get a homefield advantage through the playoffs for us to ever have a shot at a Superbowl the way things stand.

" Lynch ran hard and broke 100 yards again. On the road."

This is an empty 100 yards, really. Lynch had a 77 yard run, other than that, all his runs averaged barely over 2 yards per carry. If you looked at the line score, and saw Lynch had 12 yards for 105 yards, one might ask "why the hell didn't we run Lynch more?" The answer is that the Lions' DL is elite and controlled the line of scrimmage for the most part, which is why our passing offense was much better today.

i feel you can come up with every excuse in the book to justify today's performance by the D. we're young, lions are good, coaching.. none of it matters. the bottom line is , we can't cover short middle of the field plays, can't cover backs out of the back field, can't cover TE's... can't get off the field on 3rd and longs... these issues need to be addressed period, we're running out of time... the offense is improving, the defense is regressing... all the excuses in the book is not going to change things... IMO it starts with the coaching.... it's time some of these coaches start taking accountablility , swallow their pride or whatever, realize they're schemes are not working, make adjustments and get us back on track... that's starts with Carrol...

my biggest problem comes down to the last drive. The defense has to hold up. The offense did everything to win. The defense would have been better off letting them score unstead of holding them a yard short. But the biggest issue I have is with Browner. You simply CAN"T get beat on a slant rout when you inside the 3 yard line. Even if he's in zone coverage he can still reroute the WR to the outside and use the sideline to his advantage. Instead he got beat, just like he did in crticial situations last year.

Overall I like our team and if we're going to be playing close games all year than we have to expect to lose some close ones as well. I was just hoping the defense would shut the door on them like they did to Cam Newton.

This loss makes our HOME games all the valuable, If we want to make the playoffs we'll have to win ALL of our home games IMO. Or at least pick up 7 of 8 at home. The next 2 weeks will define the season IMO.

JSeahawks wrote:Like I said in another thread, we're a young team still learning how to win.

We'll be fine.

Btw, excellent post, hope it doesnt get buried in all the overreaction, whining and crying.

When are we no longer a young team learning how to win? When does that excuse no longer suffice?

Next year? The year after? Or will we be old then and rebuilding?

I would say next year. Pete originally said it was a 4 year rebuilding cycle and next year is year 4. We also wont have the built in excuse of a rookie QB. Next year is win or its a big dissapointment. This year is get better every week and hopefully win most of them along the way. At least thats the way I see it.

Can we quit with the gender references? I swear--it's you guys who usually go off the deep end and want everyone fired after a loss.

As for the rest of Montana's post, I agree for the most part. Obviously there are issues with defensive third downs still, and the team needs to figure out how to better defend against the dink and dunk stuff. But the D didn't just suddenly end up in the tank because the Lions won the game. In spite of their record, they are a dangerous team offensively. Stafford has a great arm and can fit passes into very small windows. He had a terrific day today.

I hate losing. I still get depressed about certain losses. But all of us probably need to chill a bit when things don't go as expected.

JSeahawks wrote:Like I said in another thread, we're a young team still learning how to win.

We'll be fine.

Btw, excellent post, hope it doesnt get buried in all the overreaction, whining and crying.

When are we no longer a young team learning how to win? When does that excuse no longer suffice?

Next year? The year after? Or will we be old then and rebuilding?

I think the thing we all must realize is that we are not built today to be a consistent winning team. At least not right now.

The very best teams have a really good mix of veteran leadership and youth that work well together. PC and JS basically got rid of the vast majority of our veterans to go young. I'm not saying it didn't need to happen, but it did leave a void which takes time to fill. We are not doing it in free agency as witnessed by out lack of activity last off season. Even Flynn could be taken more as a young player, as opposed to a veteran leader. So we need to wait for those young leaders to come forward in the next few years. It's going to take time, which is why I have mentioned several times on this board that we need to be prepared for 7-9 to 9-7 teams for this year and possibly even next year before things hopefully change for the better. Some are going to hate this comment, but it's where things stand.

JSeahawks wrote:Like I said in another thread, we're a young team still learning how to win.

We'll be fine.

Btw, excellent post, hope it doesnt get buried in all the overreaction, whining and crying.

When are we no longer a young team learning how to win? When does that excuse no longer suffice?

Next year? The year after? Or will we be old then and rebuilding?

When it's no longer valid. When either we start winning consistently or, worst case scenario, we're no longer young an inexperienced but we're still not winning consistently.

Right now we're not winning consistently, but we're young an inexperienced. If that's not the real reason then we have real problems and since I can't change shit about what we're doing and how we're doing it I'm gonna go ahead and go with the excuse that makes me feel best about the future of this team. Holla.

scutterhawk wrote:I love all the positives you mention, but they don't mean squat in a loss.

This isn't directed at you personally, but I'm getting tired of hearing this type of reasoning. The bright side/silver linings/positives aren't going to change an L into a W, or even into a lower case l -- but they certainly have meaning. They are some of the ways we can measure growth, when said growth is difficult to measure in wins and losses. This insistence on downplaying or denying any significance on the positives in a game, because of revulsion at mediocrity or morale victories or whatever, pushes the pendulum in the extreme other direction.

To follow that logic, it makes no difference if we lose by 1 or lose by 50, it still counts as a L. That's true... but only in the standings. It matters everywhere else.

For those that say it doesn't matter, do you really think the 2010 7-9 team and the 2011 7-9 team had no differences between them?

49ers webzone: Win or lose, i hope you injure Sherman. Like a serious career ending injury. I don't want him to get paid.49ers webzone: noise should not be the overwhelming reason a team is favored. they need to spray noise-damping foam onto the ceiling of that place.

scutterhawk wrote:I love all the positives you mention, but they don't mean squat in a loss.

This isn't directed at you personally, but I'm getting tired of hearing this type of reasoning. The bright side/silver linings/positives aren't going to change an L into a W, or even into a lower case l -- but they certainly have meaning. They are some of the ways we can measure growth, when said growth is difficult to measure in wins and losses. This insistence on downplaying or denying any significance on the positives in a game, because of revulsion at mediocrity or morale victories or whatever, pushes the pendulum in the extreme other direction.

To follow that logic, it makes no difference if we lose by 1 or lose by 50, it still counts as a L. That's true... but only in the standings. It matters everywhere else.

For those that say it doesn't matter, do you really think the 2010 7-9 team and the 2011 7-9 team had no differences between them?

The positives that show Wilson making good strides in the right directions, but the Defense has been dismal at containment at key times, and that is poor Coaching as much as any of the players being out of position, or Coaching the wrong defensive schemes.Also, we are unable to get past the three and outs, while our opponents are beating the hell out of us in that regards.

Our Defense needs to be Coached up, because I for one am getting pretty sick of the old "Prevent Defense" that didn't work for crap in all our losses in the past.Pretty words and phrases don't take the sting out of a loss ,especially when it's mistakes that are being repeated time and again.And the 2010 vs. the 2011 teams? different players, same Coaches, same results.

scutterhawk wrote:I love all the positives you mention, but they don't mean squat in a loss.

This isn't directed at you personally, but I'm getting tired of hearing this type of reasoning. The bright side/silver linings/positives aren't going to change an L into a W, or even into a lower case l -- but they certainly have meaning. They are some of the ways we can measure growth, when said growth is difficult to measure in wins and losses. This insistence on downplaying or denying any significance on the positives in a game, because of revulsion at mediocrity or morale victories or whatever, pushes the pendulum in the extreme other direction.

To follow that logic, it makes no difference if we lose by 1 or lose by 50, it still counts as a L. That's true... but only in the standings. It matters everywhere else.

For those that say it doesn't matter, do you really think the 2010 7-9 team and the 2011 7-9 team had no differences between them?

The positives that show Wilson making good strides in the right directions, but the Defense has been dismal at containment at key times, and that is poor Coaching as much as any of the players being out of position, or Coaching the wrong defensive schemes.Also, we are unable to get past the three and outs, while our opponents are beating the hell out of us in that regards.

Our Defense needs to be Coached up, because I for one am getting pretty sick of the old "Prevent Defense" that didn't work for crap in all our losses in the past.Pretty words and phrases don't take the sting out of a loss ,especially when it's mistakes that are being repeated time and again.And the 2010 vs. the 2011 teams? different players, same Coaches, same results.

I agree. Moral victories mean a lot when your team started out where the 2009 Seahawks did. We're in such a better position now.